Ryan Newman broke through for his first SMART Modified Tour win on Saturday afternoon at Tri County Motor Speedway in Granite Falls in North Carolina.
The 2008 Daytona 500 winner is a full-time Tour Type Modified driver this season and is chasing a championship in the SMART tour and aided his efforts on Saturday. He opened the season with a third and second across Florence and Caraway before getting caught in a crash at South Boston in the King of the Modifieds.
This time, Newman spent most of the race in second and beat a dominant Jimmy Blewett over a long run, completing the race winning pass on Lap 71, with 28 to go, and drove away to pick up his first Smarty Trophy.
“Really wanted to see it go green,” Newman said in Victory Lane. “I really felt like we were going to stay out there and know what we had instead of trying to make something out of what we were going to do. The tires were just that good.”
“We’ve been fighting for this,” Newman added. “We got crashed out last time (at South Boston) and got a third and a second before that, so we’ve been knocking on the door.”
He also contended for the win in the NASCAR Modified Tour race at Richmond Raceway the night before.
“Fun race, just a fun little racetrack,” Newman added “A great team effort. This car got wrecked pretty good last week at South Boston so I’m proud of everybody for their effort to put it back together.”
Blewett first took the lead on Lap 15 when pole sitter Will Lambrose stumbled on a restart and gave up the top spot. Blewett won the opening two stages but couldn’t hang on over the final green flag run.
“Man, we were close,” said Blewett, who drive the number-99 Modified for Jamie Tomaino. “This car is fast. Ryan just found the top before I did, honestly. I think we were matching lap times there for the last 10, 15 laps or so. He was the better man here today, he won, and I’ll take a second place here.”
Tom Buzze, Jr, of nearby Maiden, North Carolina, rounded out the podium, the second of his SMART Modified Tour career. The third-place run was a major rebound for the Mike “Andretti” Smith-owned team after three-straight finishes outside the top ten to open the season.
“All my guys, couldn’t have done it without them. We’ve had a rough year,” Buzze said. “Oddly enough, I couldn’t run the top. We were so loose up top, everybody was running the top, but my car was honestly better on the bottom. They just kept staying on the top, and I just stayed in my lane and drove by them.”
The race got off to a very slow start as the first 18 laps took an hour to complete due to a myriad of issues.
First was Brian Loftin bringing out a caution on Lap 15 with a mechanical issue, leaking fluid around the track, after fighting all manner of issues in practice and qualifying.
The necessitated a red flag for track clean-up.
Then Burt Myers stumbled under yellow, and also had a fluid leak once the red flag was lifted and that needed to be cleaned up, and he did not immediately resume the race.
Three laps into the restart, Jason Myers spun in Turn 1 and collected Jonathan Cash and Chris Finnochario. That was also a red flag.
SMART Tour Cardinal 99
Tri County Motor Speedway
March 31 2024
- Ryan Newman
- Jimmy Blewett
- Tom Buzze Jr
- Carson Loftin
- Luke Baldwin
- Jason Myers
- Joey Coulter
- Will Lambros
- Jake Crum
- Danny Bohn
- Anthony Bello
- Jimmy Wallace
- Cody Norman
- Burt Myers
- Jonathan Cash
- Blake Barney
- Johnny Kievman
- Chris Finnochario
- Brian Loftin
